


Fox and Nightingale

by dizzy_fire



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 15:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy_fire/pseuds/dizzy_fire
Summary: Mercer Frey is visited by a ghost who just won't leave well enough alone.





	Fox and Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StopTalkingAtMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopTalkingAtMe/gifts).



> I loved your prompt, hope you enjoy this little treat!

If asked, Mercer Frey would say that the odd statue he kept on his desk was a keepsake. Well, he would have said that if he were in the habit of discussing his possessions with other Guild members, which he was not. (As it was, Delvin Mallory did once ask, "So, what's the deal with the bloke in the hood over there?" and all he got in return was a frosty, "Piss off, Mallory.") But if he were, he vaguely thought, he would say it was something he got from an old friend.

Like most things Mercer Frey said, and many things he thought, it was almost entirely a lie.

***

"You make a poor Gray Fox, Frey, I'm sure you know that."

Mercer gritted his teeth until they hurt. It was late at night, Karliah was almost definitely on his tail, and the Thieves Guild's newest recruit had just blithely torched two of Maven Black-Briar's precious beehives. He did not need this right now, he really didn't.

He thought about telling his guest where to go and how to get there, but he knew from experience that it was a futile endeavor. When the damn ghost showed up, he was never that easy to get rid of.

"I'm not a Gray Fox," he grunted, eyes never leaving the papers strewn all over his desk. "And if that isn't the dumbest title anyone has ever given him- or herself, then I don't know what is."

The ghost laughed, and Mercer looked at him against his better judgment. He was sprawled carelessly in the chair opposite the Guildmaster, an insolent smile playing across his lips. He looked for all the world almost like a living man, except that there was a slight transparency and an odd tint to his features if the light of the candle caught him just right (or wrong).

"In my day," said the ghost, "we actually cared about the romance of it. Mad heists by moonlight, rooftop duels, tenacious guards and daring escapes! Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor! ...Well, sometimes. We did steal a lot just for ourselves, too. I wish you could see us as we were then, Frey. It would do your soul good, if you still have it."

"Your so-called romance sounds like a lot of tosh to me," Mercer spat out, eyes resolutely back on the letter of apology he was writing to Maven. Perhaps she would be mollified. If not, he might try sending her the idiot rookie's head on a silver plate.

"It would," the Gray Fox agreed, "to a man whose idea of a grand heist is skimming from the Guild coffers."

Mercer growled. He hated that—that note of pity in the dead man's voice. It got under his skin like nothing else. "Screw you."

"If wishes were horses..."

Mercer would have punched him if he could. Since that wasn't an option, he rose angrily and took a few steps across the room, away from the knowing grin. "Why are you even here? What do you want?"

"Have you ever considered that I might be a projection of your guilty conscience, burdened by the fact that you betrayed your fellow Nightingales, cheated the Guild, murdered the Guildmaster and stole from Nocturnal? Capital idea, that last one, by the way. Definitely not something that will come back to haunt the Guild for the next three hundred years or so."

"Why. Are you. Here."

"I don't know, Frey. Care to tell me why you keep a haunted statue on your desk?"

Mercer turned on him furiously. "I'll take a hammer to it this instant if it finally rids me of your undead face!"

The Gray Fox smiled, a little wistfully. "Capital. That's what I'd like about you, if you weren't such a repugnant bastard overall. But no, I don't think smashing the statue would help much. She doesn't give in that easily, you know."

"Nocturnal? I should've figured," Mercer laughed, but it was a bitter sound, and it echoed unpleasantly in the darkness of the room. "Tell her I spit on her stupid little Guild and its stupid little rules. You wanted daring? I have it, more than you'll ever know. When others bowed their heads, I was man enough to steal from a Daedric Prince!"

The ghost scoffed. "You were hardly the first idiot to do that, as you would know, if you had listened to what I just told you. But no matter. You will have the opportunity to tell her yourself, you know... sooner or later, you will. You may think that you cut your ties to her, that you're a free man now, but you're wrong. She never forgets those who tangle with her, and she wants you to know that she's waiting."

"Shut up. You know nothing about what I think. I'll—"

"You poor fool." The ghost reached out to the statue on Mercer's desk, and slowly trailed his finger across the hooded face. "Don't you realize? I once thought I was free from her, too."

"Shut up!" Mercer seized the sculpture of the Gray Fox, intending to dash it against the stone floor. Then, driven by a mad impulse he didn't understand, he pressed his mouth against the stone figure's lips.

For the first and possibly the last time in their acquaintance, the ghost was speechless. "Well," he said eventually. "Well. It appears that you can still surprise me, in some ways, at least." He suddenly threw his head back and laughed. "Capital! Capital, isn't it. Oh, my dear Guildmaster, if only you weren't such a nasty, underhanded murderer, I could almost like you! Goodbye for now, Mercer Frey. I _will_ see you in the Evergloam, but until then... I'd wish you luck but luck is Nocturnal's domain, too, so I'll wish you reason instead. It's not too late. You're on a road that leads only to destruction, but you can still turn back."

"No, I can't," Mercer said, feeling all the anger drain away from him, leaving nothing but a chill kind of emptiness in its wake. "I really can't. But thanks for asking."

The Gray Fox shrugged, as if to say, at least I tried. Then he was gone.

Mercer Frey put the statue down and dragged a hand across his brow. Whatever the apparition was... an envoy of Nocturnal, a hallucination of Sheogorath, even an unlikely manifestation of a guilty conscience... it appeared to have left him alone for now. If he smashed the statue, perhaps it would be prevented from returning.

(It had felt good, in a perverse sort of way, to talk to someone that knew all about him. No need for pretence, all laid out in the open for just once.)

He could always smash the statue later. Tomorrow perhaps, if he found some time, or maybe the day after.

One day, some day, he would definitely do that.


End file.
